Bordigism: What is it?

[redguarddude]

In order to learn about the politics of those who identify with Bordiga, I joined the Bordiga Literati Group. Unfortunately it's not that active. There were references, to works by Bordiga, as well as Loren Goldner. The problem is they're all theoretical. Nothing explains the current views and practices of those who consider themselves Bordigists. I learned about Leninism, Left Communism, and Anarchism, for example, by reading the press, later websites, and observing various groups in action.

During the Vietnam War, for example, would a Bordigist organization have participated, or boycotted the anti war movement, because it wasn't led by revolutionaries? What would have been the position to the recent Occupy Movement. What is the position of Bordigism of participating in unions?

Bordigism has been described as being Left Communist. Since Bordiga placed heavy emphasis on the role of the party, doesn't this conflict with Left Communism. I have reviewed older threads. None answer my questions. Any assistance answering my questions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[Blake's Baby]

Why does a 'heavy emphasis on the role of the party' conflict with Left Communism? All Left Communists are pro-party. OK, the Bordigists are the most emphatic Left Comms on the role of the party. 'More Leninist than Lenin' it's said.

Are you a member of the Left Communist group? It might be worthwhile if you really want to fiind out about Bordigism. But the best way of guaging the politics of Bordigist groups is to go to the sources. I don't think there are actually any real Bordigists on RevLeft, though there are some people more-or-less influenced by his work.

The following are Bordigist organisations (I think n+1 are Bordigists anyway).

International Communist Party (Il Communista) - http://www.pcint.org/

International Communist Party (Il Partito) - http://www.international-communist-party.org/

International Communist Party (Il Programma) -http://www.partitocomunistainternazionale.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=124&Itemid=156 - this is the latesr working link I have

n+1 - http://www.quinterna.org/lingue/english/0_english.htm

[redguarddude]

There is one group, but members only viewing. I get the idea they want the group limited to those already committed to Bordigism, as opposed to those looking for information.
Thanks for the sources and the correction about left communism.

[Blake's Baby]

There is one group, but members only viewing. I get the idea they want the group limited to those already committed to Bordigism, as opposed to those looking for information...

I'm not sure what you mean here.

I'm talking about the 'Left Communism' group on RevLeft - http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=9

It's open to those interested in discussing the Communist Left. You don't have to be a Left Comm to join it.


...
Thanks for the sources and the correction about left communism.

No worries. Happy to help.

[Geiseric]

It's like trotskyism in regards to claiming the fsu want socialist, but it was borne out of a person who didn't understand the idea of a United front struggle with non communist working class people while communists are only a minority in the working class, during the rise of fascism nonetheless.

This ended in leading its members to stray from practical Marxism which has emphasis on what are called "transitional demands," which are aimed at the demands which raise organically out of the entire working class. For example bordigaists would not participate in a struggle for immigration reform or free healthcare because those kinds of things are "reformist". The sparts, of you are familiar with them, are similar in this respect.

[redguarddude]

So basically a Spartacist version of Left Communism? Either revolution or nothing?

[Geiseric]

So basically a Spartacist version of Left Communism? Either revolution or nothing?

Yeah exactly. You hit the nail on the head.

[Leo]

The Bordigists and the Sparts have nothing in common, and what Geiseric is saying is nothing but a mixture of myths, misinformation and slander.

"Practical Marxism" has emphasis on "transitional demands," which are aimed at the demands which raise organically out of the entire working class? What practical marxism is that? Trotskyism in general with its two million sects, or the one real Trotskyist sect among two million minus one others? Nor are transitional demands actualy demands which raise organically from the working class. Transitional demands are party slogans which are considered impossible under capitalism but which don't openly call for a revolution, like "employment for all" or "housing for all". If you think putting these slogans forward has been practical in any way for any sort of marxism, you are delusional. Workers have a good grasp of how impracticle these impossible rhetorical demands are.

Bordiga "didn't understand" the idea of the united front struggle with non communist working class people? Bordiga criticized Comintern's line on the united front, yes, and he understood it far better than Lenin or Trotsky. The point about the united front wasn't the united struggle of communist and non-communist workers. Bordiga was for this, as every marxist would be - according to the marxist theory of class consciousness, even when the working class makes the revolution only a minority of it is communist. Humanity starts a job first and finishes it by gaining consciousness of it. The idea of the united front defended by the Comintern and later on the Trotskyists was a strategic political alliance between communist and social-democratic parties. Bordiga and his comrades opposed the idea of making friends with the murderers of Luxemburg and Liebknecht, with the bloodthirsty hounds of the European counter-revolution. He saw the social-democratic parties as organizations which had betrayed for good, which weren't just opportunist but completely bourgeois parties, like other democratic, republican or conservative parties. This is why for all left communists, including the Bordigsts, there isn't a real difference between the united front and the popular front since both in effect defend unity with bourgeois parties. This being said, while they opposed the political united front, the Bordigists proposed a united trade-union front.

And lastly, the Bordigists would participate in a struggle for immigration reform or free healthcare. At the peak of their strength, they were always involved with such strugles. The Bordigists, like an overwhelming majority of left communists, do not reject class demands - the organic demands of the workers in struggle and daily workers' struggles. These two struggles you just mentioned, by the way, have nothing to do with transitional demands.

[Brotto Rühle]

Why does a 'heavy emphasis on the role of the party' conflict with Left Communism? All Left Communists are pro-party. OK, the Bordigists are the most emphatic Left Comms on the role of the party. 'More Leninist than Lenin' it's said.

Are you a member of the Left Communist group? It might be worthwhile if you really want to fiind out about Bordigism. But the best way of guaging the politics of Bordigist groups is to go to the sources. I don't think there are actually any real Bordigists on RevLeft, though there are some people more-or-less influenced by his work.

The following are Bordigist organisations (I think n+1 are Bordigists anyway).

International Communist Party (Il Communista) - http://www.pcint.org/

International Communist Party (Il Partito) - http://www.international-communist-party.org/

International Communist Party (Il Programma) - http://www.partitocomunistainternazionale.org/ (http://www.ilprogrammacomunista.com/)

n+1 - http://www.quinterna.org/lingue/english/0_english.htm

Not all of us are fans of "the party"... as Otto Ruhle put it "The Revolution is Not a Party Affair".

[Blake's Baby]

'Council Communism' and 'Left Communism' parted company in 1930, comrade.

[Brotto Rühle]

'Council Communism' and 'Left Communism' parted company in 1930, comrade.

Yeah yeah, and Ultra-Leftism is another tendency yet again. If you're going that far, why not claim that Russian and Dutch/German Left Communism are not Left Communism. Only the Damenites and Bordigists make up "Left-Communism".

[Blake's Baby]

Why?

Are you claiming that Pannekoek's positions (let's say) post-1930 were the same as those of 1919, or 1911? Were those of the GIK the same as those of the KAPD?

Left Communists are pro-party (as the KAPD were) and Council Communists are anti-Party (and anti-October). The Council Communists changed their positions in the 1930s, the Left Communists kept to the same positions.

You left. We carried on without you.

[Brotto Rühle]

Why?

Are you claiming that Pannekoek's positions (let's say) post-1930 were the same as those of 1919, or 1911? Were those of the GIK the same as those of the KAPD?

Left Communists are pro-party (as the KAPD were) and Council Communists are anti-Party (and anti-October). The Council Communists changed their positions in the 1930s, the Left Communists kept to the same positions.

You left. We carried on without you.

I'm anti-party, but not anti-October. I'm not an "anti-Bolshevik", but an anti-Leninist. I have much respect for the "left" of the Bolsheviks; Kollantai, Miasnikov, etc. I do, however, believe that the party idea has proven itself more dangerous to revolution than helpful.

Left Communism covers a wider array than just "pro party but anti-lenin". In fact, Bordiga was very pro-Lenin. It's about the origins of these movements - be it Dutch/German Left Communism (Ruhle, Levi, Pannekoek, Korsch), Italian Left Communism (Bordiga or Damen), or Russian Left Communism (Kollantai or Miasnikov).

Though, if you want to exclude me from calling myself a Left Communist as well as a Council Communist, you are more than welcome. It's just a name. I'm more than comfortable calling you a Party Communist or Left Communist.

[Geiseric]

Taken from Principles of Communism by F. Engels
— 18 —
What will be the course of this revolution?

Above all, it will establish a democratic constitution, and through this, the direct or indirect dominance of the proletariat. Direct in England, where the proletarians are already a majority of the people. Indirect in France and Germany, where the majority of the people consists not only of proletarians, but also of small peasants and petty bourgeois who are in the process of falling into the proletariat, who are more and more dependent in all their political interests on the proletariat, and who must, therefore, soon adapt to the demands of the proletariat. Perhaps this will cost a second struggle, but the outcome can only be the victory of the proletariat.
Democracy would be wholly valueless to the proletariat if it were not immediately used as a means for putting through measures directed against private property and ensuring the livelihood of the proletariat. The main measures, emerging as the necessary result of existing relations, are the following:

(i) Limitation of private property through progressive taxation, heavy inheritance taxes, abolition of inheritance through collateral lines (brothers, nephews, etc.) forced loans, etc.

(ii) Gradual expropriation of landowners, industrialists, railroad magnates and shipowners, partly through competition by state industry, partly directly through compensation in the form of bonds.

(iii) Confiscation of the possessions of all emigrants and rebels against the majority of the people.

(iv) Organization of labor or employment of proletarians on publicly owned land, in factories and workshops, with competition among the workers being abolished and with the factory owners, in so far as they still exist, being obliged to pay the same high wages as those paid by the state.

(v) An equal obligation on all members of society to work until such time as private property has been completely abolished. Formation of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

(vi) Centralization of money and credit in the hands of the state through a national bank with state capital, and the suppression of all private banks and bankers.

(vii) Increase in the number of national factories, workshops, railroads, ships; bringing new lands into cultivation and improvement of land already under cultivation – all in proportion to the growth of the capital and labor force at the disposal of the nation.

(viii) Education of all children, from the moment they can leave their mother’s care, in national establishments at national cost. Education and production together.

(ix) Construction, on public lands, of great palaces as communal dwellings for associated groups of citizens engaged in both industry and agriculture and combining in their way of life the advantages of urban and rural conditions while avoiding the one-sidedness and drawbacks of each.

(x) Destruction of all unhealthy and jerry-built dwellings in urban districts.

(xi) Equal inheritance rights for children born in and out of wedlock.

(xii) Concentration of all means of transportation in the hands of the nation.
(end quote)
Left communists would call a struggle for any single one of these demands reformist. At least what I consider "ultra left," communists, who would doom themselves into obscurity by demanding all of these at once while the working class is only concerned with a section of those demands. Hell SYRIZA has all of these demands in their program, and left communists still call them reformist when the 40 point plan that SYRIZA came up with is basically taken from the principles of communism.

[Brotto Rühle]

Taken from Principles of Communism by F. Engels
— 18 —
What will be the course of this revolution?

Above all, it will establish a democratic constitution, and through this, the direct or indirect dominance of the proletariat. Direct in England, where the proletarians are already a majority of the people. Indirect in France and Germany, where the majority of the people consists not only of proletarians, but also of small peasants and petty bourgeois who are in the process of falling into the proletariat, who are more and more dependent in all their political interests on the proletariat, and who must, therefore, soon adapt to the demands of the proletariat. Perhaps this will cost a second struggle, but the outcome can only be the victory of the proletariat.
Democracy would be wholly valueless to the proletariat if it were not immediately used as a means for putting through measures directed against private property and ensuring the livelihood of the proletariat. The main measures, emerging as the necessary result of existing relations, are the following:

(i) Limitation of private property through progressive taxation, heavy inheritance taxes, abolition of inheritance through collateral lines (brothers, nephews, etc.) forced loans, etc.

(ii) Gradual expropriation of landowners, industrialists, railroad magnates and shipowners, partly through competition by state industry, partly directly through compensation in the form of bonds.

(iii) Confiscation of the possessions of all emigrants and rebels against the majority of the people.

(iv) Organization of labor or employment of proletarians on publicly owned land, in factories and workshops, with competition among the workers being abolished and with the factory owners, in so far as they still exist, being obliged to pay the same high wages as those paid by the state.

(v) An equal obligation on all members of society to work until such time as private property has been completely abolished. Formation of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

(vi) Centralization of money and credit in the hands of the state through a national bank with state capital, and the suppression of all private banks and bankers.

(vii) Increase in the number of national factories, workshops, railroads, ships; bringing new lands into cultivation and improvement of land already under cultivation – all in proportion to the growth of the capital and labor force at the disposal of the nation.

(viii) Education of all children, from the moment they can leave their mother’s care, in national establishments at national cost. Education and production together.

(ix) Construction, on public lands, of great palaces as communal dwellings for associated groups of citizens engaged in both industry and agriculture and combining in their way of life the advantages of urban and rural conditions while avoiding the one-sidedness and drawbacks of each.

(x) Destruction of all unhealthy and jerry-built dwellings in urban districts.

(xi) Equal inheritance rights for children born in and out of wedlock.

(xii) Concentration of all means of transportation in the hands of the nation.
(end quote)
Left communists would call a struggle for any single one of these demands reformist. At least what I consider "ultra left," communists, who would doom themselves into obscurity by demanding all of these at once while the working class is only concerned with a section of those demands. Hell SYRIZA has all of these demands in their program, and left communists still call them reformist when the 40 point plan that SYRIZA came up with is basically taken from the principles of communism.

Left Communists don't consider the struggle for reforms, reformist. We consider the method of parliamentarism reformist. We believe in the direct mass action of the working class to achieve reforms, and that through victory or defeat, a more meaningful and powerful result will occur. A result which empowers the class itself, none of these bourgeois spectacles -- i.e. votes in parliament, which only enforces and empowers the revisionists/reformists.

[Per Levy]

@geiseric: will you actually answer leos post? that would be interesting. also if you want a thread about why you dont like left coms, open a thread about it.

[Blake's Baby]

I'm anti-party, but not anti-October. I'm not an "anti-Bolshevik", but an anti-Leninist. I have much respect for the "left" of the Bolsheviks; Kollantai, Miasnikov, etc. I do, however, believe that the party idea has proven itself more dangerous to revolution than helpful...

Do you believe that October was a 'dual revolution', 'proletarian from below, bourgeois from above'?



...
Left Communism covers a wider array than just "pro party but anti-lenin". In fact, Bordiga was very pro-Lenin...

Who said Left Communism was 'anti-Lenin'? I'm only anti-Lenin's mistakes.


... It's about the origins of these movements - be it Dutch/German Left Communism (Ruhle, Levi, Pannekoek, Korsch), Italian Left Communism (Bordiga or Damen), or Russian Left Communism (Kollantai or Miasnikov)...

Which is why it would be ridiculous to claim that 'only the Damenites and Bordigists are Left communist'. It wasn't them that were addressed in 'Left Wing Communism - an Infantile Disorder'. It was, primarily, the Dutch and German Lefts.



...Though, if you want to exclude me from calling myself a Left Communist as well as a Council Communist, you are more than welcome. It's just a name. I'm more than comfortable calling you a Party Communist or Left Communist.

'Left Communism' had a fairly coherent set of positions; critical of the united front, critical of entry work in the unions, critical of pacts with 'friendly' countries, against parliamentary work - but, the proletarian nature of the October revolution was not in question, and nor was the necessity of the party as a tool of the working class.

Ruhle, first, but later Pannekoek and Mattick and others, came to reject the party and the proletarian nature of October, theorising it as either entirely bourgeois or a 'dual revolution' (Pannekoek's 'Why past revolutionary movements have failed' is a classic example of this).

I think you'll find that generally, Left Communists who identify with these changed positions of the Dutch-German Lefts (ie, not the positions of the KAPD) call themselves 'Council Communists' in distinction to 'Left Communists'. For several years, I called myself a 'Left Communist of the German-Dutch tradition' because I regarded my politics as being pretty much in continuity with the KAPD of 1921. Not with the GIK. That's Council Communism.

[Brotto Rühle]

Do you believe that October was a 'dual revolution', 'proletarian from below, bourgeois from above'?No. I believe it was a proletarian revolution. I believe that the way in which the proletariat attempted to seize power, via the party, resulted in the dotp not being fully consolidated...and partially, the reason for it's ultimate demise. Again, I say partially. But I believe, wholeheartedly, that things would have been very different had the organs of working class power had been directly in the hands of workers, as opposed to delegates of the Bolshevik party...things may have been quite different.


Who said Left Communism was 'anti-Lenin'? I'm only anti-Lenin's mistakes.Too many to count. I say that, because it came across as if only the anti-Leninists are left communists. Apologies for misreading you.


Which is why it would be ridiculous to claim that 'only the Damenites and Bordigists are Left communist'. It wasn't them that were addressed in 'Left Wing Communism - an Infantile Disorder'. It was, primarily, the Dutch and German Lefts.They were addressed in one of Lenin's footnotes. Lenin, however, wasn't too familiar with them.


'Left Communism' had a fairly coherent set of positions; critical of the united front, critical of entry work in the unions, critical of pacts with 'friendly' countries, against parliamentary work - but, the proletarian nature of the October revolution was not in question, and nor was the necessity of the party as a tool of the working class.The form and role of the party certainly was, though. Even among Left Communists, the debate of the Leninist vanguard style, and single party of Bordiga, is at odds with the other variants who even promote multi-partyism.


Ruhle, first, but later Pannekoek and Mattick and others, came to reject the party and the proletarian nature of October, theorising it as either entirely bourgeois or a 'dual revolution' (Pannekoek's 'Why past revolutionary movements have failed' is a classic example of this).They were wrong in doing so.


I think you'll find that generally, Left Communists who identify with these changed positions of the Dutch-German Lefts (ie, not the positions of the KAPD) call themselves 'Council Communists' in distinction to 'Left Communists'. For several years, I called myself a 'Left Communist of the German-Dutch tradition' because I regarded my politics as being pretty much in continuity with the KAPD of 1921. Not with the GIK. That's Council Communism.I call myself a Council communist on the basis of my rejection of partyism. I don't agree with everything Mattick, Pannekoek and Ruhle ever said.

[Sea]

https://mega.co.nz/#!qccRBAib!V3T3ahjz_puYrHCzlXv1BUlkEqZkEqT4s57DRpv oM1s

Here's a collection of Bordiga's articles from MIA (yes all of them) in a convenient epub format. I'll post this on the bordiga literati group too.

edit: I also mandate that from this point on in this thread, the International Communist Party shall be known as the Insane Clown Party.

[Geiseric]

The Bordigists and the Sparts have nothing in common, and what Geiseric is saying is nothing but a mixture of myths, misinformation and slander.

"Practical Marxism" has emphasis on "transitional demands," which are aimed at the demands which raise organically out of the entire working class? What practical marxism is that? Trotskyism in general with its two million sects, or the one real Trotskyist sect among two million minus one others? Nor are transitional demands actualy demands which raise organically from the working class. Transitional demands are party slogans which are considered impossible under capitalism but which don't openly call for a revolution, like "employment for all" or "housing for all". If you think putting these slogans forward has been practical in any way for any sort of marxism, you are delusional. Workers have a good grasp of how impracticle these impossible rhetorical demands are.

Nothing's impractical if people are willing to struggle for them. You know what is impractical? Building a working class party while abandoning the every day struggles of the working class itself. All of those "party slogans" are meant to mobilize people around demands which the bourgeois state WILL NOT pass through. The reason they won't pass through is because the illusion of moneys power will be broken if it's revealed that resources can be distributed equitably. Of course Ultra Lefts think the demand of "revolution now" is more obtainable than the other things which people are struggling for now, such as education and citizenship for all.


Bordiga "didn't understand" the idea of the united front struggle with non communist working class people? Bordiga criticized Comintern's line on the united front, yes, and he understood it far better than Lenin or Trotsky. The point about the united front wasn't the united struggle of communist and non-communist workers. Bordiga was for this, as every marxist would be - according to the marxist theory of class consciousness, even when the working class makes the revolution only a minority of it is communist. Humanity starts a job first and finishes it by gaining consciousness of it. The idea of the united front defended by the Comintern and later on the Trotskyists was a strategic political alliance between communist and social-democratic parties. Bordiga and his comrades opposed the idea of making friends with the murderers of Luxemburg and Liebknecht, with the bloodthirsty hounds of the European counter-revolution. He saw the social-democratic parties as organizations which had betrayed for good, which weren't just opportunist but completely bourgeois parties, like other democratic, republican or conservative parties. This is why for all left communists, including the Bordigsts, there isn't a real difference between the united front and the popular front since both in effect defend unity with bourgeois parties. This being said, while they opposed the political united front, the Bordigists proposed a united trade-union front.

"The bloodthirsty killers of Leibknecht" were the freikorps, not the masses of SPD voters, who actually did ask for a united front against fascism in 1930. If you deny them a united front against fascism it means you deny them a front against the political incarnation of capitalism's decay, and effectively doom the entire working class, which only was in the interests of the Stalinists.

Calling the SPD leadership bourgeois is obvious, but the entire idea of a united front is to get the working class voters of the SPD, who are organized as such in their unions, to work with the communists on things they need a mass of people to do. If the SPD voters wanted a front with the KPD, it would of necessitated an internal conflict which was already evident seeing as the the SPD, which basically was the Weimar state itself, was losing votes and members to fascism due to the obvious idiocy of their leadership. But they didn't turn to the KPD because as of then, they ignored the Ruhr occupation and the revolutionary situations all through the 1920s due to Stalinist misleadership.

But the real idiocy is that the KPD threatened to back the Nazis if the SPD denied them a front in 1931. It's something called the "red referendum." On top of that, Thaellman thought it was only possible to beat the Nazis after they've beaten the SPD, which he thought would lead to the workers of the SPD to join the KPD. Trotsky replied with the following:


Can we expect that in the course of the next few months the Communist Party will defeat both the Social Democracy and fascism? No normal-thinking person who can read and calculate would risk such a contention. Politically, the question stands like this: Can we successfully repel fascism now, in the course of the next few months, that is, with the existence of a greatly weakened, but still (unfortunately) very strong Social Democracy? The Central Committee replies in the negative. In other words, Thälmann considers the victory of fascism inevitable.

The thousands upon thousands of Noskes, Welses, and Hilferdings prefer, in the last analysis, fascism to Communism. [3] But for that they must once and for all tear themselves loose from the workers. Today this is not yet the case. Today the Social Democracy as a whole, with all its internal antagonisms, is forced into sharp conflict with the fascists. It is our task to take advantage of this conflict and not to unite the antagonists against us.

The front must now be directed against fascism. And this common front of direct struggle against fascism, embracing the entire proletariat, must be utilized in the struggle against the Social Democracy, directed as a flank attack, but no less effective for all that.

The overwhelming majority of the Social Democratic workers will fight against the fascists, but – for the present at least – only together with their organizations. This stage cannot be skipped. We must help the Social Democratic workers in action – in this new and extraordinary situation – to test the value of their organizations and leaders at this time, when it is a matter of life and death for the working class.


And lastly, the Bordigists would participate in a struggle for immigration reform or free healthcare. At the peak of their strength, they were always involved with such strugles. The Bordigists, like an overwhelming majority of left communists, do not reject class demands - the organic demands of the workers in struggle and daily workers' struggles. These two struggles you just mentioned, by the way, have nothing to do with transitional demands.

Those have everything to do with transitional demands. Have you even read the transitional program?

[Geiseric]

Left Communists don't consider the struggle for reforms, reformist. We consider the method of parliamentarism reformist. We believe in the direct mass action of the working class to achieve reforms, and that through victory or defeat, a more meaningful and powerful result will occur. A result which empowers the class itself, none of these bourgeois spectacles -- i.e. votes in parliament, which only enforces and empowers the revisionists/reformists.

If you deny parliamentarism as a rule, you can't possibly call yourself a Marxist since Marx and Engels specifically spoke against that. They made it clear on many occasions that Parliamentarism is simply a tactic to achieve specific gains, and mobilize people around specific issues such as speaking out against a world war in front of an audience of millions. To deny that opportunity is foolish. Parliamentarism is a tactic, not a strategy to obtain socialism as the social democrats think. Engels and the founders of marxism itself founded the SPD, which degenerated not due to the founding principles, but due to in a sense of the largest political contradiction in history, when police for example were all SPD members. It clearly was THE biggest obstacle to the communists in germany, apart from the Stalinists, who had their heads in the clouds leading the KPD, and as we see the SPD didn't last after the slight economic recoveries in the early 1920s, due to the contradictions in the party which all originated in their leaders abandoning of Marxism.

[Brotto Rühle]

If you deny parliamentarism as a rule, you can't possibly call yourself a Marxist since Marx and Engels specifically spoke against that. Besides parliamentarism is simply a tactic to achieve specific gains, and mobilize people around specific issues such as speaking out against a world war in front of an audience of millions. To deny that opportunity is foolish. Parliamentarism is a tactic, not a strategy to obtain socialism as the social democrats think.

My denial of parliamentarism is based in analysis of it and the history of communist participation in parliament, etc.

BTW, just because Marx supported it at the time, doesn't make it a static law of Marxism.

[Geiseric]

My denial of parliamentarism is based in analysis of it and the history of communist participation in parliament, etc.

BTW, just because Marx supported it at the time, doesn't make it a static law of Marxism.

I just said that, I said it was used as a tactic for specific things, not as a static law of marxism. When communists participate in parliament and take seats in the government, it is antithetical to Marxism, and as we see all of those attempts if they were even sincere in their claims to be in the interests of revolution failed.

[Brotto Rühle]

I just said that, I said it was used as a tactic for specific things, not as a static law of marxism. When communists participate in parliament and take seats in the government, it is antithetical to Marxism, and as we see all of those attempts if they were even sincere in their claims to be in the interests of revolution failed.

My point is that it is a failed, and counter-productive tactic.

[Geiseric]

My point is that it is a failed, and counter-productive tactic.

How is destroying parliament, by using parliament itself, counter productive? Lenin and the Bolsheviks did it right, by exposing the other parties as agents of capital in service to the capitalists waging the great war, which is why they were kicked out of the constituent assembly, which led to more and more workers being disillusioned with the constituent assembly which conflicted with the soviets for power. So no it isn't failed. Neither are united fronts, such as when the Bolsheviks agreed to rally the Russian working class to defeat Kornilov after being freed by Kerenskys government, and then turned their metaphorical cannon on Kerensky himself after Kornilov was done with.

[Yuppie Grinder]

You should start with Fundamentals of Revolutionary Communism by the turtle-looking dude himself.

[Brotto Rühle]

How is destroying parliament, by using parliament itself, counter productive? Lenin and the Bolsheviks did it right, by exposing the other parties as agents of capital in service to the capitalists waging the great war, which is why they were kicked out of the constituent assembly, which led to more and more workers being disillusioned with the constituent assembly which conflicted with the soviets for power. So no it isn't failed. Neither are united fronts, such as when the Bolsheviks agreed to rally the Russian working class to defeat Kornilov after being freed by Kerenskys government, and then turned their metaphorical cannon on Kerensky himself after Kornilov was done with.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/gorter/1920/open-letter/index.htm

[Fred]

So basically a Spartacist version of Left Communism? Either revolution or nothing?

Dude, no. The Sparts are all for the Transitional Program, but not as an excuse to pursue lash-ups with reformist groups or to support bourgeois parties/candidates, etc. The Left-Comms can say quite correctly, I am afraid, that ostensible Trotskyists often have reformist appetites.

And to clarify a couple of points -- in Germany the KPD did have a stance that there was no important difference between the Nazis and Social Dems. In fact, on occasion, they formed military blocs with the Nazis against the SPD. That was during the ultra-left "third period" zig-zag followed by a lurch to the right after the debacle in Germany. Okay -- I am going off on a tangent and will stop.

[Brotto Rühle]

Dude, no. The Sparts are all for the Transitional Program, but not as an excuse to pursue lash-ups with reformist groups or to support bourgeois parties/candidates, etc. The Left-Comms can say quite correctly, I am afraid, that ostensible Trotskyists often have reformist appetites.

And to clarify a couple of points -- in Germany the KPD did have a stance that there was no important difference between the Nazis and Social Dems. In fact, on occasion, they formed military blocs with the Nazis against the SPD. That was during the ultra-left "third period" zig-zag followed by a lurch to the right after the debacle in Germany. Okay -- I am going off on a tangent and will stop.

The Left Communists formed the KAPD, sorry to burst your bubble. The KPD remained Leninist.

[Geiseric]

Dude, no. The Sparts are all for the Transitional Program, but not as an excuse to pursue lash-ups with reformist groups or to support bourgeois parties/candidates, etc. The Left-Comms can say quite correctly, I am afraid, that ostensible Trotskyists often have reformist appetites.

And to clarify a couple of points -- in Germany the KPD did have a stance that there was no important difference between the Nazis and Social Dems. In fact, on occasion, they formed military blocs with the Nazis against the SPD. That was during the ultra-left "third period" zig-zag followed by a lurch to the right after the debacle in Germany. Okay -- I am going off on a tangent and will stop.

The sparts are NOT for the transitional program. They are the most sectarian group on the left, and regularly harass us when we plan demonstrations about things that actually mobilize people. The only example I need is the number of coalitions they are actually part of. Which is 0. And if we can use social democrats to work for our (socialists, not you and I) program, all the better. The entire idea is the independence of the program the coalition is built around from bourgeois influence.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

How does every second thread on this site manage to turn into a discussion of the SL? It's uncanny.

As has already been noted, Left Communists have little to do with the Trotskyist Spartacist League, though, hey, as a sympathiser of the SL I certainly find the LeftCom line more appealing than that of social-democrats trying to be Trotskyists.

The issue of parliamentarianism is besides the point; Bordiga did not argue against participation in bourgeois parliaments in general, but in the specific situation the Italian party found itself in. Given the circumstances, he was probably right. Of course, many modern Bordigists are de facto against participation in all bourgeois parliaments, which I think is an incorrect position. But it is certainly less wrong than ostensible socialists desperately trying to be elected so they can manage some aspect of the bourgeois state.

Bordigists try to preserve what they term the invariant communist programme, which often results in a sort of doctrinal rigidity. They consider the Soviet Union to have been capitalist (though Bordiga's initial pronouncements on the matter were more guarded), though they regard this sort of capitalism as progressive. I would say they generally have no understanding of combined and uneven development, and they often seem to ignore certain forms of special oppression. Some of Bordiga's later works are outright plan-mongering, and influenced primitivists through Camatte. They are opposed to democracy in any form, positing instead a sort of organicist conception where the party takes the role of a "social brain".

Oh, and as for Spart sectarianism, remind me, which group defended M. Curtis from the attacks of bourgeois groups and the traitor-"socialist" SEP? What group consistently refused to CIA-bait its opponents, including the notorious gangster Wohlforth?

[Devrim]

So basically a Spartacist version of Left Communism? Either revolution or nothing?
Yeah exactly. You hit the nail on the head.

I would imagine that very few people on RevLeft know that much about Bordigism. Leo would be one of the exceptions. He has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of it, and is certainly worth taking note of on this subject.

Gaiseric has very little idea of what he is talking about at all. He starts by saying that the Bordigists were against the idea of a united front, whereas the slogan the the Bordigists advocated was 'a united front from below', and then goes onto say that the Bordigists condemned things as reformist despite having been told on numerous occasions that left communists don't charecterise things as reformist.

Trotsky originally was very impressed by the Italian left:


The Platform of the Left (1926) produced a great impression on me. I think that it is one of the best documents published by the international Opposition and it preserves its significance in many things to this very day.

There is a piece here (http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2000-10-01/trotsky-and-the-internationalist-communist-left) by the ICT which discusses the relationship between Trotsky and the Bordigists.

Devrim

[Art Vandelay]

The sparts are NOT for the transitional program. They are the most sectarian group on the left, and regularly harass us when we plan demonstrations about things that actually mobilize people. The only example I need is the number of coalitions they are actually part of. Which is 0. And if we can use social democrats to work for our (socialists, not you and I) program, all the better. The entire idea is the independence of the program the coalition is built around from bourgeois influence.

Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the word, as I assume you are, but the meaning of the word 'sectarian,' within the Marxist terminology, is one who advances the political goals of his or her 'sect' or 'party' or 'organization' (since I thought we were having a discussion on viable forms of organization), above those of the broader working class. Quite frankly I find the amount of irony in your posts, in this thread, to be palatable; since, after all (this coming from a member of a Trotskyist organization) you seem to be the walking poster boy, for the caricature of a sectarian Trotskyist. I guess I just don't think you should be hurling around that term as a slur (which ultimately, when not used properly, impedes productive debate), when you quite clearly don't understand the definition of it yourself. I mean the irony of calling anyone, a sectarian, while basing such a claim off of a 'differing political group, undermining the actions of your own,' is so laughable, that I don't know quite what to say, without being rude. Cause its borderline come to the point, where its becoming a caricature, ie: daft punk 2.0.

I don't think it takes much sense to differentiate between the posters who are putting forth nuanced and intelligent lines of thought in this thread, to those who aren't. Ultimately, it has been mentioned (correctly), that many 'ortho-trot' groups and 'left com' groups, have hardly a difference in tangible methodology when it comes to modern issues. As much as the ICT and ICC members would probably love to argue this point all night, our history, as a movement, collectively condemns us all. We are the political offspring of failures and our theory reflects as such. The left hasn't had its shit together in 50 some years, and those who want to chalk it up to a misuse of tactics are either paraphrasing the 'scripture' of past Marxists (as if it meant something to appeal to authority) but also haven't been up to much but establishing, what essentially amounts to Marxists reading groups, in the past half decade.

So essentially, I guess what I'm trying to say, is that the majority of this discussion has been pointless, ie: the regurgitated party lines of two revolutionary currents which haven't been relevant in over 50 years. I certainly don't claim that my party has all the answers, or has been all that relevant in the big scheme of things, but I would never of joined if they had necessitated such an attitude before joining.

As radicals we certainly don't have all the answers, but I think we do accurately access the nature of the problem, I just think we'd get alot further without obvious dogma.

[Leo]

Nothing's impractical if people are willing to struggle for them. You know what is impractical? Building a working class party while abandoning the every day struggles of the working class itself.

Slander the left communist all you want, you're only discrediting yourself. It has been repeated at least half a dozen times in this very thread that left communists do not and have never abandoned the every day struggles of workers. People are not willing to struggle for impossible demands do because they are not practical. No one, save leftists, wants to struggle for such demands.


All of those "party slogans" are meant to mobilize people around demands which the bourgeois state WILL NOT pass through.

Yes, and no one is mobilized around these demands exactly because they know the bourgeois state will not pass them through. If you think such demands have done such a wonderous job mobilizing people in the long decades they've been in practice, you're delusional.


The reason they won't pass through is because the illusion of moneys power will be broken if it's revealed that resources can be distributed equitably. Of course Ultra Lefts think the demand of "revolution now" is more obtainable than the other things which people are struggling for now, such as education and citizenship for all.

Again, another slander. Just because we don't support dishonest mock demands of the Trotskyists doesn't mean we don't defend the struggles of working class people or the class demands born out of the struggle itself. We see a direct link between the struggle for the workers to improve their living and working condition and the struggle for the overthrow of capitalism. Or to quote Marx: "In that case we do not confront the world in a doctrinaire way with a new principle: Here is the truth, kneel down before it! We develop new principles for the world out of the world’s own principles. We do not say to the world: Cease your struggles, they are foolish; we will give you the true slogan of struggle. We merely show the world what it is really fighting for, and consciousness is something that it has to acquire, even if it does not want to."


"The bloodthirsty killers of Leibknecht" were the freikorps

Who were organized by the social democrats. Was it not Ebert who said he hated revolution like sin? Was it not Noske who said someone had to be the bloodhound and he was willing to fulfil the responsibility?


not the masses of SPD voters, who actually did ask for a united front against fascism in 1930

No one is blaming the masses of SPD voters. I thought even you might be able to make a distinction between the working class voters of a party, and the party itself which is bourgeois; apparently not.


If you deny them a united front against fascism it means you deny them a front against the political incarnation of capitalism's decay, and effectively doom the entire working class, which only was in the interests of the Stalinists.

Who eventually came up with the formulation of the popular front, which not only included the social democrats, but other left bourgeois parties also. I'm sorry, but a strategic political alliance between the heads of the Stalinist and social democratic with or without other bourgeois parties wouldn't have prevailed against the rise of fascism. Nor were they any less of an incarnation of the decay of capitalism.


Calling the SPD leadership bourgeois is obvious

To be honest, reading your post, it doesn't seem really obvious.


but the entire idea of a united front is to get the working class voters of the SPD, who are organized as such in their unions, to work with the communists on things they need a mass of people to do.

Which would be... what exactly? Voting for a joint social democratic & stalinist ticket and trying to vote in a mock "workers' government" or a "popular government"?

The idea of the united front was a united front from above - since a united front below is not actually a united front.


If the SPD voters wanted a front with the KPD, it would of necessitated an internal conflict which was already evident seeing as the the SPD, which basically was the Weimar state itself, was losing votes and members to fascism due to the obvious idiocy of their leadership. But they didn't turn to the KPD because as of then, they ignored the Ruhr occupation and the revolutionary situations all through the 1920s due to Stalinist misleadership.

But the real idiocy is that the KPD threatened to back the Nazis if the SPD denied them a front in 1931. It's something called the "red referendum." On top of that, Thaellman thought it was only possible to beat the Nazis after they've beaten the SPD, which he thought would lead to the workers of the SPD to join the KPD.

The real idiocy, I would say, were the Trotskyists ramblings about the self-centered actions of two parties both of which were essentially bourgeois; both of which had nothing to offer the working class. The social democrats were the responsible party for the rise of Nazism itself; even bourgeois historians trace back the Nazi movement to the crushing of the German Revolution. The Stalinists were basically agents of the Russian bourgeois state at that point and had basically no choice but do whatever the Russians told them to do. Trotskyists complained about these parties and kept saying how good it could be in a nice and cozy united front, never understanding that they were the suckers in this equation.


Those have everything to do with transitional demands. Have you even read the transitional program?

Sadly, yes. It was an unusually boring read. Transitional demands are demands that can't be achieved under capitalism. So they aren't exactly the same with demands that would fall under the category of minimum demands, which are obtainable under capitalism. Like immigration reform or free healthcare. There are countries which have these - so it's not like housing for all, employment for all or a six hour working day.

The whole point of the transitional demands are that they will sound reasonable to workers, that workers will say "huh, that would be nice" when they hear such demand put forward by a party and will start supporting that party because of it before thinking about socialism or radicalism, but the demands themselves would be impossible to achieve under capitalism. The simple problem this idea had throughout history was the fact that the workers weren't actually stupid.


If you deny parliamentarism as a rule, you can't possibly call yourself a Marxist since Marx and Engels specifically spoke against that.

Yes they did, in the 19th century, when capitalism was on the rise and workers' revolution wasn't on the imminent agenda as the objective conditions for it weren't ripe yet. This doesn't mean Marx and Engels had illusions about parliamentarianism. As Engels said: "Democracy is, as I take all forms of government to be, a contradiction in itself, an untruth, nothing but hypocrisy, at the bottom. Political liberty is sham-liberty, the worst possible slavery; the appearance of liberty, and therefore the reality of servitude. Political equality is the same; therefore democracy, as well as every other form of government, must ultimately break to pieces: hypocrisy cannot subsist, the contradiction hidden in it must come out; we must have either a regular slavery — that is, an undisguised despotism, or real liberty, and real equality — that is, Communism."


How is destroying parliament, by using parliament itself, counter productive? Lenin and the Bolsheviks did it right, by exposing the other parties as agents of capital in service to the capitalists waging the great war, which is why they were kicked out of the constituent assembly, which led to more and more workers being disillusioned with the constituent assembly which conflicted with the soviets for power. So no it isn't failed.

More and more myths. I'm wondering if it is deliberate or if you actually are this ignorant. The Bolshevik activity in the Russian Duma was never truly significant. They never did so well in bourgeois elections, and eventually they decided to boycott them. As for what caused the workers being disillusioned in the Constitutional Assembly, it wasn't what the Bolsheviks did in them which again was minimal. The workers had already established their own organs of power opposed to the bourgeois organ of power. It was this contrast that did the trick, as it often does.


Neither are united fronts, such as when the Bolsheviks agreed to rally the Russian working class to defeat Kornilov after being freed by Kerenskys government, and then turned their metaphorical cannon on Kerensky himself after Kornilov was done with.

I'm sorry, are you claiming that the Bolsheviks made a united front with Kerensky's bourgeois government? All evidence shows that the main, if not all, the thrust of the resistance to the coup came from the soviets, not from the few detachments still loyal to Kerensky. These de*tachments were intensely demoralised. The workers were not interested in defending Kerensky and the Provisional Government. They correctly saw the coup as the attempt of the counter-*revolution to crush the Soviets, and defended the soviets against them. Militarily they didn't hit Kerensky at the same time they were hitting Kornilov: does this amount to a united front? Does it even amount to a temporary alliance? Or can it even be described in any way as any form of support?


Bordiga did not argue against participation in bourgeois parliaments in general

Actually he did initially. He changed his position during the debates in the Comintern and changed it back to opposing parliamentarianism in general afterwards.


They consider the Soviet Union to have been capitalist (though Bordiga's initial pronouncements on the matter were more guarded), though they regard this sort of capitalism as progressive.

Bordiga wasn't guarded about calling the Soviet Union capitalist, nor did he or the Bordigists consider it progressive, although they considered American imperialism to be more dangerous.


I would say they generally have no understanding of combined and uneven development, and they often seem to ignore certain forms of special oppression.

This is a rather bold claim. Care to give a few examples?

Also combined and uneven development is a Trotskyist formulation; it is not the divine word of truth which one can only understand. Just because someone rejects a Trotskyist formulation doesn't mean they don't understand it. This is a really weak sort of arguement which makes people look a bit mad.


Some of Bordiga's later works are outright plan-mongering

Again, plan-mongering? What are you talking about?


Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the word, as I assume you are, but the meaning of the word 'sectarian,' within the Marxist terminology, is one who advances the political goals of his or her 'sect' or 'party' or 'organization' (since I thought we were having a discussion on viable forms of organization), above those of the broader working class.

Actually, no, that is party patriotism. Sectarianism is characterized by a refusal to engage in debate.


Ultimately, it has been mentioned (correctly), that many 'ortho-trot' groups and 'left com' groups, have hardly a difference in tangible methodology when it comes to modern issues. As much as the ICT and ICC members would probably love to argue this point all night, our history, as a movement, collectively condemns us all.

We the left communists, have a clean record of not supporting bourgeois states, bourgeois nationalist gangs, imperialist wars, trade-union bureaucrats and the parliamentarian circus: nothing, no one but the working class and its struggles for its living and working conditions.

History doesn't collectively condemn us with the sects of a current which took sides in every imperialist war, supports nationalists murderers of workers, trade-union bureaucrats and reinforces the parliamentary illusions on a daily basis.

It's true, us left communists aren't perfect, and history does condemn us for our mistakes and failures, which are many. It condemns you, the Trotskyists, however, right along the Stalinists and the social democrats.

[Fred]

The sparts are NOT for the transitional program. They are the most sectarian group on the left, and regularly harass us when we plan demonstrations about things that actually mobilize people. The only example I need is the number of coalitions they are actually part of. Which is 0. And if we can use social democrats to work for our (socialists, not you and I) program, all the better. The entire idea is the independence of the program the coalition is built around from bourgeois influence.

Comrade, I would guess that your entire conception of "coalitions" is just different. I've been involved in those things -- and it is NEVER the revolutionaries using the social dems, it is always the other way around. They always ooze down to lowest common denominator demands. I would argue that participation in most of them is based on a thorough misunderstanding of the Trotskyist perspective on the United Front -- March separately and strike together. Which means, it is fine to take action, with leftist groups you do not agree with, but it is impermissible to form ongoing groupings that dilute the independence of the revolutionary group. It also means that the revolutionaries should be vocally pointing out what is wrong with the reformist's program even while working with them. Do not submerge the revolutionary program.

In this extended period of reaction, it is hard to do this -- and I understand the appeal of anything that seems to be in motion (e.g., Occupy). But, it is a very dead end, comrade.

[Fred]

The Left Communists formed the KAPD, sorry to burst your bubble. The KPD remained Leninist.

Comrade, if you are going to attack what I say, at least bring some sense and understanding to it. The KPD was fully Stalinized by the late 20s. They were carrying out Stalin's "third period" line. They referred to the SPD as "social fascists," and their leader, Thalmann was famous for a quote, "After Hitler, us." So I don't know what on Earth you are talking about. Thanks for the contribution.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Actually he did initially. He changed his position during the debates in the Comintern and changed it back to opposing parliamentarianism in general afterwards.

Well, I defer to your authority on this matter, but it was my impression that the Bordigists never renounced the conclusions of the first two congresses of the ComIntern, and thus that they support the Leninist position on parliamentarianism and national liberation, on paper at least.


Bordiga wasn't guarded about calling the Soviet Union capitalist, nor did he or the Bordigists consider it progressive, although they considered American imperialism to be more dangerous.

Didn't Bordiga concede the existence of socialist relations of production in the Soviet cities in his earlier work? As for considering (what he considered to be) Soviet capitalism progressive, he thought that it fulfilled the tasks of the bourgeois revolution in Russia, surely? Avanti, barbari, and so on.



This is a rather bold claim. Care to give a few examples?

Also combined and uneven development is a Trotskyist formulation; it is not the divine word of truth which one can only understand. Just because someone rejects a Trotskyist formulation doesn't mean they don't understand it. This is a really weak sort of arguement which makes people look a bit mad.

I don't think it makes me look mad - I am a Trotskyist, so of course I will criticise Bordiga from a Trotskyist perspective. If you were to criticise Trotsky, I would fully expect you to do so from a Left Communist perspective. And I think the formulation I cited above - Soviet "capitalism" fulfilling the tasks of the bourgeois revolution - demonstrates that Bordiga did, in fact, fail to appreciate the realities of uneven and combined development, that his conception was stagist and inapplicable to backward regions.


Again, plan-mongering? What are you talking about?

"The Human Species and the Earth's Crust", for example.

[JPSartre12]

I'm surprised that Brosa Luxemburg hasn't joined this thread, I think that he's one of the better Bordigists around.

[Fred]

I'm sorry, are you claiming that the Bolsheviks made a united front with Kerensky's bourgeois government? All evidence shows that the main, if not all, the thrust of the resistance to the coup came from the soviets, not from the few detachments still loyal to Kerensky. These de*tachments were intensely demoralised. The workers were not interested in defending Kerensky and the Provisional Government. They correctly saw the coup as the attempt of the counter-*revolution to crush the Soviets, and defended the soviets against them. Militarily they didn't hit Kerensky at the same time they were hitting Kornilov: does this amount to a united front? Does it even amount to a temporary alliance? Or can it even be described in any way as any form of support?


But it is such a good example of the United Front tactic. The Bolsheviks joined, in common action, with Mensheviks, and SRs to fight Kornilov. A specific, time-limited action. They never ceased openly and forcefully fighting against the political program of these leftist opponents. Even though, both groups had been gleefully involved in imprisoning the Bolshevik leaders after the July Days.

[Zanthorus]

In order to learn about the politics of those who identify with Bordiga, I joined the Bordiga Literati Group. Unfortunately it's not that active. There were references, to works by Bordiga, as well as Loren Goldner. The problem is they're all theoretical. Nothing explains the current views and practices of those who consider themselves Bordigists.

If you're asking about Bordigism as a practical movement you're doing it wrong, all those 'International Communist Party's are dead fossils. According to eyewitness reports, for example, the current English section of Partito Communista is one very elderly fellow. No-one with a working understanding of history and Marxism really cares about following Bordiga as blindly as other Marxist sects follow Lenin or Luxemburg.

Bordiga as a person is interesting for a few reasons.

1. His story and the story of the Italian Communist Left is a counter to the typical narrative about Italian Communism in the early 20th century and in particular brings into question the role of every Trotskyists favourite Stalinist Antonio Gramsci.

2. He is important in the history of Marx exegesis for his belief in the invariance of Marxism since at least 1848. He is also reportedly one of the earliest figures to note the importance of Marx's early notebooks and manuscripts.

3. He flip-flopped on the nature of the Soviet Union. But in the 50's he produced a pretty extensive work on the nature of the Soviet Union which reportedly concludes in favour of the thesis that the SU was capitalist, with a reported emphasis on the importance of the agrarian question (This remains untranslated unfortunately).

4. Also his ideas about democracy, party and class are more substantial than usually given credit.

If you care about the practical side of things, word of mouth suggests that Programma Comunista was the biggest Left Com organisation internationally until the early 70's at least.

Bordiga's a tough nut to crack though. A huge part of his work remains untranslated into English. Having only a rudimentary grasp of Italian at the moment all my sources are Internet translations, commentaries and talking to various Left Communists. But from what little there is, he's definitely someone worth shedding light on.

The ICT translated Onorato Damen's obituary of Bordiga which can be read here (http://www.marxists.org/archive/damen/1970/bordiga-obituary.htm).

[Geiseric]

Comrade, I would guess that your entire conception of "coalitions" is just different. I've been involved in those things -- and it is NEVER the revolutionaries using the social dems, it is always the other way around. They always ooze down to lowest common denominator demands. I would argue that participation in most of them is based on a thorough misunderstanding of the Trotskyist perspective on the United Front -- March separately and strike together. Which means, it is fine to take action, with leftist groups you do not agree with, but it is impermissible to form ongoing groupings that dilute the independence of the revolutionary group. It also means that the revolutionaries should be vocally pointing out what is wrong with the reformist's program even while working with them. Do not submerge the revolutionary program.

In this extended period of reaction, it is hard to do this -- and I understand the appeal of anything that seems to be in motion (e.g., Occupy). But, it is a very dead end, comrade.

Umm I would give you examples from my own experiance of how you're wrong, and I've figured this out by practice by the time I was 18. Mobilizing people, not phrase mongering, is the point of Marxism, so whatever you need to do, including having liberals do outreach for a Marxist program, is what has to be done. Your supposed leftist "principles" well leave you I'm the dust, like the sparts whose entire existance is based on lurking around our demonstrations, selling their newspaper and unsuccessfully trying to recruit our members, while not even being part of the coalitions we put togather.

[Geiseric]

This is an earnest question, what are the major left communist groups doing these days in terms of organizing?

[Fred]

Umm I would give you examples from my own experiance of how you're wrong, and I've figured this out by practice by the time I was 18. Mobilizing people, not phrase mongering, is the point of Marxism, so whatever you need to do, including having liberals do outreach for a Marxist program, is what has to be done. Your supposed leftist "principles" well leave you I'm the dust, like the sparts whose entire existance is based on lurking around our demonstrations, selling their newspaper and unsuccessfully trying to recruit our members, while not even being part of the coalitions we put togather.

The Sparts have existed for about fifty hears by now. They are obviously rather different than the group you belong to. The point of Marxism is to change the world. But not to just "change" it, to change it in a fairly specific way. I have been around a long time -- I have seen more rad/lib coalitions than you. They go nowhere, and the folks that chase them usually wind up being liberals too. I have my own reservation about the Sparts, but it sure as hell isn't that they don't cozy up to liberals to try and seduce a few of them. Mobilizing people for a liberal program is not worthwhile for Marxists. The Left-Comms, at least have some sense of this.

[ed miliband]

This is an earnest question, what are the major left communist groups doing these days in terms of organizing?

it's not earnest though, i'm sure, the implication is that they aren't doing as much dead-end (hyper-)activism as your favourite trot sects. but as has already been said, if you're looking for contemporary practice you're looking in the wrong place. none of that should demean the value of the italian communist left's insights and historical importance.

[Devrim]

If you're asking about Bordigism as a practical movement you're doing it wrong, all those 'International Communist Party's are dead fossils. According to eyewitness reports, for example, the current English section of Partito Communista is one very elderly fellow.

It is very harsh to judge the ICP on one elderly UK supporter. They never had much traction in the UK even when they were comparatively strong. They do still existing in Italy as organisations.

Devrim

[Geiseric]

it's not earnest though, i'm sure, the implication is that they aren't doing as much dead-end (hyper-)activism as your favourite trot sects. but as has already been said, if you're looking for contemporary practice you're looking in the wrong place. none of that should demean the value of the italian communist left's insights and historical importance.

Way to avoid the question! It was an earnest question, what are left communists actually organizing and mobilizing the working class around? If you can't answer the question i'm going to assume nothing since I don't know any bona fide "left communists," in my immediate area. Anti austerity mobilizing? Anti cuts? Are there any demands that they agree with even other Communists, other than left communists, about as part of a coalition? Is there anything? Or is that all "reformist"?

[Devrim]

Way to avoid the question! It was an earnest question, what are left communists actually organizing and mobilizing the working class around? If you can't answer the question i'm going to assume nothing since I don't know any bona fide "left communists," in my immediate area. Anti austerity mobilizing? Anti cuts? Are there any demands that they agree with even other Communists, other than left communists, about as part of a coalition? Is there anything? Or is that all "reformist"?

As I have already mentioned left communists don't go around labelling things as 'reformist' though you seem to have difficulty understanding this as you persist in saying that they do.

On the specifics of what the various ICPs do, I don't think that anybody here is very well qualified to comment. They don't really existing in the English speaking world, and are mostly confined to Italy with very small groups in a few other countries.

As for what left communists in general do, they have a very different conception of political activity to you, which is based around intervention in the actual struggles of the class rather than forming coalitions and organising campaigns.

Devrim

[Geiseric]

As I have already mentioned left communists don't go around labelling things as 'reformist' though you seem to have difficulty understanding this as you persist in saying that they do.

On the specifics of what the various ICPs do, I don't think that anybody here is very well qualified to comment. They don't really existing in the English speaking world, and are mostly confined to Italy with very small groups in a few other countries.

As for what left communists in general do, they have a very different conception of political activity to you, which is based around intervention in the actual struggles of the class rather than forming coalitions and organising campaigns.

Devrim

Great, where are left communists intervening then? I'm intervening for example at the community college of san fransisco which is in danger of being shut down by the state, which is bought out by the student loan industry.

[Geiseric]

The Sparts have existed for about fifty hears by now. They are obviously rather different than the group you belong to. The point of Marxism is to change the world. But not to just "change" it, to change it in a fairly specific way. I have been around a long time -- I have seen more rad/lib coalitions than you. They go nowhere, and the folks that chase them usually wind up being liberals too. I have my own reservation about the Sparts, but it sure as hell isn't that they don't cozy up to liberals to try and seduce a few of them. Mobilizing people for a liberal program is not worthwhile for Marxists. The Left-Comms, at least have some sense of this.

you didn't even read what I said so i'm not going to argue with you.

[Skyhilist]

In my opinion, Bordigism seems to be like the middle ground between traditional Left Communism and Trotskyism in how much authority the "revolutionary party" is supposed to have.

[Art Vandelay]

Actually, no, that is party patriotism. Sectarianism is characterized by a refusal to engage in debate.

I'm going to have to agree to disagree on that one.


sec·tar·i·an(sk-târ-n) adj.
1. Of, relating to, or characteristic of a sect.
2. Adhering or confined to the dogmatic limits of a sect or denomination; partisan.
3. Narrow-minded; parochial.

n.
1. A member of a sect.
2. One characterized by bigoted adherence to a factional viewpoint.
Regardless party patriotism and sectarianism can be used interchangeably to a certain extent, since they so often overlap, but I'd be interested in seeing any resources you have wear such a definition is laid out.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

In my opinion, Bordigism seems to be like the middle ground between traditional Left Communism and Trotskyism in how much authority the "revolutionary party" is supposed to have.

Bordigism was one of the first currents to be called "left communist" - if I recall correctly, only the group around the journal Kommunist preceded them. Perhaps the KAPD, I'm not sure. Second, the Bordigists invest the party with far more authority than Trotskyists. Social brain, and all that.

[Art Vandelay]

In my opinion, Bordigism seems to be like the middle ground between traditional Left Communism and Trotskyism in how much authority the "revolutionary party" is supposed to have.

Its simply false to make the claim that the distinction between Bordigism and Trotskyism, has anything to do with 'authoritarianism'; both were unapologetic, rightly so, authoritarians.

[Blake's Baby]

...
I call myself a Council communist on the basis of my rejection of partyism. I don't agree with everything Mattick, Pannekoek and Ruhle ever said.

OK. You now have to eplain what 'partyim' means to you and why you reject it, because though what you mean to yourself may be perfectly clear it isn't to the rest of us.

[Devrim]

Great, where are left communists intervening then? I'm intervening for example at the community college of san fransisco which is in danger of being shut down by the state, which is bought out by the student loan industry.

It seems to me a rather bizarre question. Personally I have been involved with much more than you. It's a result of being a lot older, and where. Have lived. I have been involved as a striking worker, in general strikes, and wildcat strikes of hundreds of thousands of workers. I have been involved in running workers publications in two different industries. I have also been involved in supporting many other workers struggles that I wasn't directly involved in.

What's your point?

Devrim

[Geiseric]

It seems to me a rather bizarre question. Personally I have been involved with much more than you. It's a result of being a lot older, and where. Have lived. I have been involved as a striking worker, in general strikes, and wildcat strikes of hundreds of thousands of workers. I have been involved in running workers publications in two different industries. I have also been involved in supporting many other workers struggles that I wasn't directly involved in.

What's your point?

Devrim

The same could be said for other marxist tendencies, that's very interesting but I was wondering what the left communist parties were up to.

[Geiseric]

As I have already mentioned left communists don't go around labelling things as 'reformist' though you seem to have difficulty understanding this as you persist in saying that they do.

On the specifics of what the various ICPs do, I don't think that anybody here is very well qualified to comment. They don't really existing in the English speaking world, and are mostly confined to Italy with very small groups in a few other countries.

As for what left communists in general do, they have a very different conception of political activity to you, which is based around intervention in the actual struggles of the class rather than forming coalitions and organising campaigns.

Devrim

What does "intervening in the actual struggles of class," mean in practice? I'd seriously like to learn. When the spartacists say that, who I know are not left communists, it means selling their newspaper at demonstrations and trying to impress their program at coalition meetings without even being part of the coalition. But they have some super hero mentality, they think that as soon as they tell people that they need to do a revolution when a mass of people are assembling for something such as an anti cuts protest, it just happens, and anybody who is against that idea is a social democrat.

[Brotto Rühle]

OK. You now have to eplain what 'partyim' means to you and why you reject it, because though what you mean to yourself may be perfectly clear it isn't to the rest of us.

Partyism being the belief in the political party as the organization of the working class.

Partyism being the belief that a party is necessary/the best way for the class to organize.

Etc. Sorry for the not so detailed answer.

[Blake's Baby]

Partyism being the belief in the political party as the organization of the working class.

Partyism being the belief that a party is necessary/the best way for the class to organize.

Etc. Sorry for the not so detailed answer.

So; you call yourself a Council Communist because you don't see a political organisation of communists to be necessary or desirable for the revolution against capitalism.

Which is what I was getting at saying that the positions of 'council communism' as I think it's pretty generally understood, are contrary to some of the positions of the KAPD (which was hardy 'anti-party', given that it was a party).

[Leo]

Partyism being the belief in the political party as the organization of the working class.

Partyism being the belief that a party is necessary/the best way for the class to organize.

Yet this is the Bordigist conception of the party - it is not the universal left communist position although left communists - including the Dutch and German left communists nevertheless are for a party.

For some left communists, there needs to be a party but the party is neither the organization of the entire class nor a way for the entire class to organize. The organization of the entire working class is the workers' councils, not the party, and it is the workers councils that have the historical task to take power and hold it. For some left communists, one of the most important lessons of the October Revolution was that the party taking power lead to the death of the party itself, not just for the working class but quite literally as well. The communist party is nevertheless seen as a necessary and organic part of the working class, which has a critical role to play during the revolutionary process nevertheless. Whose organization is this party? It too is an organization of the proletariat, but made up of the most militant and conscious sections.

[Thirsty Crow]

So, after all this crap about transitional trickery and so on, to try and get back to the notion of Bordigism in practice.

My impression (that's the right word, I can't recall texts or any links) is that Italian organizations commit a few errors:

1) Union question - I think they generally did not produce a coherent criticism of the union form (as opposed to the lamentations on bad leadership), therefore support it as working class organizations (it's hard to see unions as such in its aspect of social revolution which would necessitate direct struggle against said organizations and a different kind of a workplace based and coordinated organs for workplace management; only in this sense it is wrong to call them "working class organizations")

2) National liberation and the support for it

3) The question of the party - this is a slippery field, but again it seems to me that Bordigists haven't reached correct conclusions from the historical experience of the October Revolution and its demise. As far as I know, the heavy emphasis on the role of the party basically verges on the call for party rule.

I'd be glad to be corrected if I'm wrong.

[Geiseric]

Don't bordigaists believe in "red unions"? How did that seem like a good idea of they did?

[Yuppie Grinder]

There is a difference between young Bordiga and old Bordiga. He became more and more supportive of national liberation and unions as time went on. His early stuff is more in line with what you typically think of when you hear left-communism. Young Bordiga was in line with Luxemburg on the question of national liberation.
It is very important to read Bordiga very critically. He was brilliant in many areas, but he got kooky as an old man and I think his theoretical positions regressed.

[Thirsty Crow]

Don't bordigaists believe in "red unions"? How did that seem like a good idea of they did?
Yes, I think they do, but I fail to see what's you're question. If you're asking why do they think it's a good idea, as I already say, they lack a coherent criticism of the union form, as far as I know.


There is a difference between young Bordiga and old Bordiga. He became more and more supportive of national liberation and unions as time went on. His early stuff is more in line with what you typically think of when you hear left-communism. Young Bordiga was in line with Luxemburg on the question of national liberation.That's true, but I specifically addressed existing organizations through the prism of the diffuse information I seem to recall on them.

[Leo]

There is a difference between young Bordiga and old Bordiga. He became more and more supportive of national liberation and unions as time went on. His early stuff is more in line with what you typically think of when you hear left-communism. Young Bordiga was in line with Luxemburg on the question of national liberation.
It is very important to read Bordiga very critically. He was brilliant in many areas, but he got kooky as an old man and I think his theoretical positions regressed.

This isn't very accurate, unfortunately. Like all communists to the left wing of the Communist International, most important among whom are quite possibly the communists from the East, Bordiga was rather uneasy and uncomfortable about the Comintern's position and how it was expressed on the national question. This being said, the question of party discipline was very important to him and additionally this wasn't a very big issue, or at least the biggest issue for him. The Italian left decided to raise their voice of opposition on the parliamentary question. Eventually, except the point on parliamentarianism, Bordiga started advocating a return to the positions of the first two congresses of the Communist International, as he was feeling militants around the magazine Bilan were going a bit too far. The position on invariance dogmatized the position of course. Bordiga's later formulation was a support for the colored peoples. This being said, all this remained theoretical since neither Bordiga himself nor Bordigist organizations never found it in themselves to actually support a bourgeois nationalist organization, neither conditionally nor critically. This didn't support them from recruiting people from nationalist backgrounds and with nationalist sentiments though, and eventually when these people wanted to actually support actual national liberation movements, this lead to an implosion of the Bordigist movement.


Don't bordigaists believe in "red unions"? How did that seem like a good idea of they did?

This was only the position of the 1973 Il Partito Comunista split from the International Communist Party.

[L.A.P.]

1. His story and the story of the Italian Communist Left is a counter to the typical narrative about Italian Communism in the early 20th century and in particular brings into question the role of every Trotskyists favourite Stalinist Antonio Gramsci.



Sorry to ask the typical stupid question; could you expand on this? But I'm really interested in understanding the context for this



Sent from my Windows Phone using Tapatalk

[Blake's Baby]

Gramsci was parachuted into a leadership position in the PCI; he then went about putting ComIntern policy into practice, which resulted in the 'Bordigist/Left Communist/Abstantionist' fraction (about 60% of the party, and the main group that even founded the Communist Party of Italy out of the old PSI) being excluded (in a similar way to how the leadership of the KPD managed to throw the 'left' - really the majority - of the party out, leading to the formation of the KAPD).

[Flying Purple People Eater]

My point is that it is a failed, and counter-productive tactic.

Au contraire, what you are supporting is the failed and counter-productive tactic - it has been tried and failed in the years that led up to the Spanish Civil War.

Marx actually wrote a lot about the parliamentary purism some of the CNT heads were pursuing, and you can clearly see he's pissed off. Most of the stuff on marxists.org archives is him having a meltdown about how this brilliant, massive and active revolutionary socialist group in Catalonia was shooting itself in the foot by substituting action in parliament with calls for a fabled 'general strike' that never came.

As an exerpt of a reflection on some of the dumb shit that went down by the man himself, to serve as an example:



http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1873/bakunin/

That is what Bakuninist "abstention from politics" leads to. At quiet times, when the proletariat knows beforehand that at best it can get only a few representatives to parliament and have no chance whatever of winning a parliamentary majority, the workers may sometimes be made to believe that it is a great revolutionary action to sit out the elections at home, and in general, not to attack the State in which they live and which oppresses them, but to attack the State as such which exists nowhere and which accordingly cannot defend itself. This is a splendid way of behaving in a revolutionary manner, especially for people who lose heart easily; and the extent to which the leaders of the Spanish Alliance belong to this category of people is shown in some detail in the aforementioned publication.

As soon as events push the proletariat into the fore, however, abstention becomes a palpable absurdity and the active intervention of the working class an inevitable necessity. And this is what happened in Spain. The abdication of Amadeo ousted the radical monarchists [3] from power and deprived them of the possibility of recovering it in the near future; the Alfonsists [4] stood still less chance at the time; as for the Carlists, they, as usual, preferred civil war to an election campaign. [5] All these parties, according to the Spanish custom, abstained. Only the federalist Republicans, split into two wings, and the bulk of the workers took part in the elections. Given the enormous attraction which the name of the International still enjoyed at that time among the Spanish workers and given the excellent organisation of the Spanish Section which, at least for practical purposes, still existed at the time, it was certain that any candidate nominated and supported by the International would be brilliantly successful in the industrial districts of Catalonia, in Valencia, in the Andalusian towns and so on, and that a minority would be elected to the Cortes large enough to decide the issue whenever it came to a vote between the two wings of the Republicans. The workers were aware of this; they felt that the time had come to bring their still powerful organisation into play. But the honourable leaders of the Bakuninist school had been preaching the gospel of unqualified abstention too long to be able suddenly to reverse their line; and so they invented that deplorable way out -- that of having the International abstain as a body, but allowing its members as individuals to vote as they liked. The result of this declaration of political bankruptcy was that the workers, as always in such cases, voted for those who made the most radical speeches, that is, for the Intransigents, and considering themselves therefore more or less responsible for subsequent steps taken by their deputies, became involved in them.



His summary of the ordeal:



What then is the result of our whole investigation?

1. As soon as they were faced with a serious revolutionary situation, the Bakuninists had to throw the whole of their old programme overboard. First they sacrificed their doctrine of absolute abstention from political, and especially electoral, activities. Then anarchy, the abolition of the State, shared the same fate. Instead of abolishing the State they tried, on the contrary, to set up a number of new, small states. They then dropped the principle that the workers must not take part in any revolution that did not have as its aim the immediate and complete emancipation of the proletariat, and they themselves took part in a movement that was notoriously bourgeois. Finally they went against the dogma they had only just proclaimed -- that the establishment of a revolutionary government is but another fraud another betrayal of the working class -- for they sat quite comfortably in the juntas of the various towns, and moreover almost everywhere as an impotent minority outvoted and politically exploited by the bourgeoisie.


2. This renunciation of the principles they had always been preaching was made moreover in the most cowardly and deceitful manner and was prompted by a guilty conscience, so that neither the Bakuninists themselves nor the masses they led had any programme or knew what they wanted when they joined the movement. What was the natural consequence of this? It was that the Bakuninists either prevented any action from being taken, as in Barcelona, or drifted into sporadic, desultory and senseless uprisings, as in Alcoy and Sanlúcar de Barrameda; or that the leadership of the uprising was taken over by the intransigent bourgeois, as was the case in most of the revolts. Thus, when it came to doing things, the ultra-revolutionary rantings of the Bakuninists either turned into appeasement or into uprisings that were doomed to failure, or, led to their joining a bourgeois party which exploited the workers politically in the most disgraceful manner and treated them to kicks into the bargain.


3. Nothing remains of the so-called principles of anarchy, free federation of independent groups, etc., but the boundless, and senseless fragmentation of the revolutionary resources, which enabled the government to conquer one city after another with a handful of soldiers, practically unresisted.


4. The outcome of all this is that not only have the once so well organised and numerous Spanish sections of the International -- both the false and the true ones -- found themselves involved in the downfall of the Intransigents and are now actually dissolved, but are also having ascribed to them innumerable atrocities, without which the philistines of all nationalities cannot imagine a workers' uprising, and this may make impossible, perhaps for years to come, the international re-organisation of the Spanish proletariat.

[Blake's Baby]

Relevance of Spain in 1871 to Italy in 1917 or anywhere else on the planet today?

Ironically, it's the Bordigists who claim that Marxism is 'invariant' and hasn't changed one iota since 1848. To claim that Marx's tactical musings of 140 years ago must be relevant today makes Marx a prophet and Marxism a revealed religion.

[Thirsty Crow]

Relevance of Spain in 1871 to Italy in 1917 or anywhere else on the planet today?

Ironically, it's the Bordigists who claim that Marxism is 'invariant' and hasn't changed one iota since 1848. To claim that Marx's tactical musings of 140 years ago must be relevant today makes Marx a prophet and Marxism a revealed religion.
Absolutely this. Using Marx, or whomever, and their writings which arose from the specific historical conditions of struggle to bash a current set of conclusions based on changed conditions is hardly productive.

[Devrim]

What does "intervening in the actual struggles of class," mean in practice? I'd seriously like to learn. When the spartacists say that, who I know are not left communists, it means selling their newspaper at demonstrations and trying to impress their program at coalition meetings without even being part of the coalition. But they have some super hero mentality, they think that as soon as they tell people that they need to do a revolution when a mass of people are assembling for something such as an anti cuts protest, it just happens, and anybody who is against that idea is a social democrat.

Some are like that, some do what I consider to be good work.

Devrim

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Relevance of Spain in 1871 to Italy in 1917 or anywhere else on the planet today?

That wasn't the question here. It was in response to someone who has said that marxist movements that delved into electoral politics or 'the state' had been tried and failed. I provided consistent surprise with a real historical scenario where those very anti-state involvement politics were tried and failed, and happened to quote Marx on the issue. Do note that what he wrote were just musings on the whole scenario as it happened - there was no 'cultist twisting of history' here. The Spanish anarchists failed to espouse political power because of the organisation heads' refusal to participate in governmental politics, leading to the majority of workers voting for independents and sellouts. If you bothered to read the article instead of shrieking 'cultist', you will see multiple referencing.


Ironically, it's the Bordigists who claim that Marxism is 'invariant' and hasn't changed one iota since 1848. To claim that Marx's tactical musings of 140 years ago must be relevant today makes Marx a prophet and Marxism a revealed religion.

I'm not even going to justify this neanderthalic witch-hunting with a response. It's just as messianic to repudiate political musings out of date alone than to blindly accept them. Not to mention this was not why I was posting the article. It was, as I have said already, a response to someone who thinks that electoral and state politics simply collapsed onto themselves with history to prove it. I responded with a historical example where the politics derived from that very outlook had handicapped and gutted the catalonian working class movement.

Unless of course you are claiming that history is irrelevant, at which point I'd suggest you drop all pretense of being a marxist (actually, scratch that - a sane human being) and continue your wonderful adventure in happy land, where everything 'just is' and doesn't develop out of historical social, economic and geographical conditions.

[Blake's Baby]

Development is important. The fact that conditions are very different now to what they were in 1871 (or was it 1873?) makes Marx's musings irrelevant. Bordiga, writing in the 20th century, is more 'up to date' than Marx (which doesn't make him right of course) because he is describing a situation closer to our own. Marx is writing of the failure of Anarchism (a badly-thought-out Anarchism that I'm guessing most Anarchists now would reject) in a semi-feudal country. Bordiga is writing of the failure of electoralism in a (fairly) developed capitalist country. Which is more like the situation in developed capitalist countries now?

[reb]

What do Bordigists mean when they say "invariance of Marxism"?

[Remus Bleys]

What do Bordigists mean when they say "invariance of Marxism"?
http://www.international-communist-party.org/BasicTexts/English/52HistIn.htm